FIRST STREET GALLERY blog: Stanley Lewis

Stanley Lewis, Westport, 2010-2014, oil on canvas 21.25 by 35.25 inches

FIRST STREET GALLERY blog: Stanley Lewis: Hello followers!   With the new season upon us, we are reinvigorated and are re-encouraged to record our thoughts and adventures!   ...

December Group Show

In our age of polyphonic diversity the title, “NO RESTRICTIONS” easily assimilates into today’s vast canons of possibilities. So too, First Street Gallery has evolved over the decades into more open expressions of individual artistic visions. Thus, each artist creates both a private vocabulary and a retrieval of past traditions.

Participating artists: Jennifer Aldridge, Nancy Balliett, Jessica Bartlet, Kathleen Bennett Bastis, Sallie Benton, Sandra Caplan, Mary K. Connelly, Bill Creevy, Teresa Dunn, Suzi Evalenko, Hank Feeley, Wendy Gittler, Rachel Gordon Bernstein, Tim Kennedy, Michele Liebler, Mari Lyons, Cynthia MacCollum, Rallou Malliarakis, Doretta Miller, Kathi Packer, Marianne Perry Salas, Tracy Powers, Nicole McCormick Santiago, Dana Saulnier, and Jane Shoenfeld.

New Work

Torrington Water Street at Alfredos, oil on paper, 10 x 10 inches, 2013

Torrington Towers from FPI Factory Building, oil on paper, 10 x 10 inches, 2013

Torrington Wires at Church and Water, oil on paper, 6 x10 inches, 2013

Torrington Sky Wires, oil on paper, 10 x 10 inches, 2013

Saturday in the City – Nicole McCormick Santiago at First Street Gallery

Nicole McCormick Santiago, Susan with Toys and Lollipops, oil on canvas, 24x38

Reminiscent of Wayne Thiebault’s bakery shop paintings, McCormick Santiago is painting pastry as still life.  There are bold pops of pinks, reds, and deliciously painted patterns, all immaculately rendered.  Interestingly enough the artist participates in some of her compositions mixing still life with self portraiture.  The artist paints herself with equal amounts of enthusiasm and articulation as paper plates, party cups, and cupcakes.  

McCormick Santiago’s careful calibration of whimsical color is exciting and expressive.  Her use of white color is outstanding.  There were easily a dozen shades of white in each piece but most spectacularly in Susan with Toys and Lollipops, oil on canvas, 24 x 38 inches.  The use of color as light and shape carried by the sensitivity of the brush strokes is pure brilliance.  Her still life paintings integrate seamlessly from the pastry shop to the nursery.  They share a similar palette, perfect drawing, and an engaging use of light, space, and unusual perspective.  Painting chops aside, McCormick’s innate sense of composition makes for irresistible paintings.  

Nicole McCormick Santiago, Cakes, Cupcakes, Lollipops,oil on canvas, 8x6

If it was the color and the composition of shapes that attract the viewer to the larger scaled works, the small scaled works have tripled the impact.  The fresh, immediate, and “quick” appearance of the small paintings would make any painter drool.  Gone is the careful glazing of layer after layer of meticulously applied paint and what is left is deft strokes of pure color capturing form and light all at once!  The painting is magical!  The dash, dot, dot, of a brush loaded with burnt clementine pigment transforms the end of a limb into a curled foot.  This is the kind of “blink and you miss it” mark making that is more like dancing with paint.  This is pure skill that comes from thousands of hours spent in the studio, honing your craft, taking risks, and painting for painting’s sake.  

The content of the paintings is also something worth spending time with.  McCormick Santiago’s paintings are about experiencing life, focusing on the positive, and taking the time to pause and see what is in front of her.  The saying goes: you eat with your eyes before your mouth.  This is possibly most true with desserts than other food group.  The special beauty of decorated cakes and pastries is homage to this truth.  McCormick Santiago is not only taking the time to “eat” with her eyes, the cake, but also objects that surround and make up the pieces of her life.  Cakes, forks and knives, a pretty table cloth, baby toys, tubes of paint, and herself and her child as “objects” participate in McCormick Santiago’s personal “meal.”  The tabletop is a representation of life and the still life paintings are the result of the artist “eating with her eyes” before she digs in and lives her life.  The paintings are a visual representation of a reminder to find enjoyment in every bit of it along the way.  

It is an especially loaded message from an artist, who also happens to be a woman, having her cake … and eating it, too.

This optimistic and deliciously painted show is up until June 15.  Check it out!

http://www.nicolemccormicksantiago.com/

http://www.firststreetgallery.net/

Friday in the City – Robin Reynolds at Prince Street Gallery

Friday in the City – Robin Reynolds at Prince Street Gallery

Robin Reynolds, Elisabeth's Flowers, 46x46, oil mounted on board

The most fantastic paintings are the ones in which the process is transparent, the mark making is sincere, and bold color is celebrated.  Robin Reynolds’ paintings at Prince Street Gallery were all of those things.  The first thing I noticed when I stepped off the elevator was the saturated color in the abstracted square compositions of Reynolds’ garden paintings.  

The printed card does not show in any way the vibrancy of the permanent rose, red, and pinkish tangerine marks, or the cobalt strokes glowing against an emerald field.  The color is fresh and bright and had the hands of Reynolds masterful eye for color theory, the paintings have a dramatic impact.  The connectivity and interplay between neutrals and whites, cozying up to carefully calibrated complimentary colors appears to have been as much fun for Reynolds to paint as it is to see in person.  Upon closer inspection, the luminosity of the color was enhanced by the glossy and liquid texture of the paint.  Of all paint textures, glossy and liquid are my favorite!  The color glowed from the inside giving the paintings a masterful dual sense of light.  The transparency of the energetic and lithe gestured marks was fascinating because, underneath, linear, charcoal flowers bloom, giving the viewer a window in which to see Reynolds’ process.  The beautiful and fresh integration of drawing and painting elements are refreshing and exciting!  

The square compositions, many on stretched paper, were composed from Reynolds’ observation of the garden just outside her back door, in her backyard.  The concept of finding the source for the academic investigation and the exploitation of the fundamental elements to make great art just outside your backdoor is something I find to be irresistibly attractive.  The texture of a paper ground, in lieu of canvas, was also gorgeous.  

I am a little late in writing this and the show is down already but more information can be found at RobinReynolds.com.